The leaders of Muslim community and religious organizations signed a joint document on December 11, 2017 - The Social Concept of Muslims in Ukraine. At a solemn meeting, representatives of Islamic organizations spoke about the history of this document.

The ruins of the old church in the district center of Rozhische in Volyn have become the subject of controversy between the Protestants and the Orthodox. The temple was built in the nineteenth century by the Baptists, “the Soviets” expropriated and placed manufacturing plants in the church.

Expert thought

… the Moscow Patriarchate is busy both in Ukraine and the outside world agitating against such a grant of autocephaly to the UOC-KP and the UAOC, which it regards as schismatic. But its ability to influence world Orthodoxy is limited…

Religious Studies

The history evidences: the Local Churches that were historically associated with earthly empires were uninterested in the canonical establishment of local churches under their jurisdictions, and therefore usually granted autocephaly to churches only under the pressure of historic circumstances. No exception is the Moscow Patriarchate, which has incorporated the Orthodox Church in Ukraine since 1686.

Ukrainian Orthodoxy and Ukrainian society suffer from division. The majority of Ukrainian Orthodox believers belong to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church under the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate. The rest of the Orthodox community of Ukraine has chosen a different path of self-proclaimed autocephaly. However, neither the first nor the second path is optimal for the Orthodox Church in Ukraine to date.

Bishop urges Catholic groups to renege after they signed Trudeau’s pro-abortion pledge

Calvin Freiburger

The head of Toronto and eastern Canada’s Ukrainian Catholic diocese has publicly condemned the Trudeau government’s pro-abortion attestation for summer jobs grants, and is calling on every applicant to the program to withdraw.

On Tuesday, the Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of Toronto and Eastern Canada released a statement by Bishop Stephen Chmilar expressing how “deeply saddened” he was by the “discrimination” of the program’s “new ideological requirements.”

The Canada Summer Jobs program provides additional funds for groups that hire students for summer positions. It’s projected to fund almost 70,000 student jobs this summer, but this year controversy has arisen because it now requires participating organizations to sign an attestation that their “core mandate” agrees with a variety of left-wing positions, including a “right” to abortion.

“Considering the serious implications of the government beginning to act discriminatorily towards those who believe in the most basic principles of religious freedom as well as the fundamental right to life, I am urging our faithful to consider the serious issues that are at play with such an attestation,” he wrote. “There is a legitimate question about the ability of Catholic chaplains to continue to participate in organizations which, by taking such government funding, will have explicitlystated their organization has a mandate which supports rights including the so-called right to abortion.”

Chmilar asked for all Ukrainian Catholics to support his stand, reminding them that their church’s history of “fighting for its beliefs and freedom of worship” has been marked by far greater sacrifices than government aid money, including clergy and followers being “forced underground, imprisoned, exiled, and executed.”

“Our faithful must be made aware of the importance of the basic human right to dissent and have freedom of thought according to one’s conscience and religious belief,” he wrote. “It is the responsibility of all to stand up against any systemic discrimination by the government in a democratic society; this is a principle which Ukrainians certainly understand intimately.”

Chmilar closed the letter by calling on “any organization that has submitted an application for a grant” to “withdraw its application and return any funding received, explaining that the organization does not support the right to abortion.”

In January, 87 Christian, Jewish, and Muslim leaders signed an open letter calling on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Employment Minister Patty Hajdu to abandon the attestation, calling it a “religious or ideological test or conditions to receiving government benefits or protection” that was incompatible with the “promise of a free and democratic society.”

Even some of Trudeau’s fellow abortion supporters in Parliament have said the attestation goes too far. New Democratic Party MP David Christopherson said it “took away Canadians’ right to disagree with the laws that they have to obey,” while Liberal MP Scott Simms called it “an insensitive measure to those who felt strongly about this.” Trudeau subsequently punished Simms’ dissenting vote by revoking his chairmanship of a standing committee.

David Adams Richards, an independent senator appointed in August by Trudeau himself, said there was “not a totalitarian government in the world who wouldn’t agree” with the “arrogant and disastrous” mandate.

Yet despite resistance, Trudeau has refused to reconsider the attestation. During a House of Commons debate last week, Trudeau declared he would “not apologize for ensuring that women’s rights are protected across this country.” He also accused any organization that refused to sign the attestation of effectively opposing the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Conservative members of parliament responded with crise of “unbelievable!” and “shame!”